Ísland ljóstengt (Iceland Fibre-Connected)
Iceland
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Good practice
Imported
★ 88
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Rete FTTH AASS — San Marino's Nationwide Fibre-to-the-Home Network
San Marino · Città di San Marino · See the San Marino profile
Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 61% 68/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice
San Marino's state utility AASS built an open-access fibre-to-the-home network reaching virtually every home across all nine municipalities, completing universal rollout by 2023 after a 2016 launch, though adoption still trails full coverage.
17,500 of ~23,000 %
Residential units connected (October 2021)
32.7 per 100 inhabitants
Fixed-broadband subscriptions (2019)
Details
- Maturity
- Established
- Promoter
- AASS (Azienda Autonoma di Stato per i Servizi Pubblici)
- Period
- 2016–2023 (ongoing operation)
- Keywords
- broadband infrastructure, fibre-to-the-home, universal connectivity, digital divide, public utility
Context
AASS, San Marino's state-owned public utility, began building a nationwide open-access fibre-to-the-home network in January 2016, contracting COTES SpA, rolled out municipality-by-municipality across all nine castelli of the microstate.
Results
By October 2021, roughly 17,500 of ~23,000 residential units were connected (about 75% coverage) with 3,000+ active FTTH subscriptions; the last two municipalities were completed by 27 April 2023. The ITU's 2020 5G Country Profile recorded fixed-broadband subscriptions at 32.7 per 100 inhabitants and 3G/4G population coverage at 99%.
Conclusions
The rollout took over seven years from launch to full territorial completion; San Marino has no dedicated broadband strategy, the network was built as general public-utility infrastructure rather than a targeted digital-inclusion programme, and no verifiable data on affordability subsidies or digital-literacy support was found.
Implementation
- Indicative cost
- High (€500k–€5M)
- Time to results
- Medium (1–3 years)
- Staffing & skills
- AASS (Azienda Autonoma di Stato per i Servizi Pubblici), COTES SpA (infrastructure contractor)
Conditions for success
- A dedicated broadband/digital-inclusion strategy beyond utility rollout
- Affordability subsidies for low-income households
Common failure modes
- No dedicated broadband strategy; framed as general utility infrastructure, not digital inclusion
- Estimated residual usage gap of ~15% despite near-universal coverage
Commonly funded by
National / regional programmes
Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.
Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.
Data sources
Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.
- C-NAPSE web research — accessed 2026-09-17
- AASS (Azienda Autonoma di Stato per i Servizi Pubblici) — accessed 2026-09-17
- giornalesm.com — accessed 2026-09-17
- libertas.sm — accessed 2026-09-17
- ITU 5G Country Profile: San Marino (PDF) — accessed 2026-09-17
- sanmarinofixing.com — accessed 2026-09-17
Attachments
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